


Ears Everywhere

by Sproings



Series: Surveillance [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Feels, M/M, POV Outsider, Steve Rogers's Sadness Errands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 20:44:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5840308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sproings/pseuds/Sproings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there are ears everywhere, that means it's somebody's job to listen.</p>
<p>I hate my job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ears Everywhere

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Повсюду есть уши](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5916670) by [beatlomanka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beatlomanka/pseuds/beatlomanka)
  * Translation into English available: [Les murs ont des oreilles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6049600) by [orsenna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orsenna/pseuds/orsenna)
  * Translation into 中文 available: [无处不在的耳朵](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7299463) by [joankindom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joankindom/pseuds/joankindom)



I hate my job.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I joined because I wanted to make a difference. To fight the good fight. To cut off one head, and all the others that took its place.

But somehow, that turned into this. I pull on the headphones, and I don’t sigh, because the microphone would pick it up.

“How’s he doing?” I ask.

A familiar voice answers, “Not too bad, today. He watched Spaceballs after lunch. It’s always nice to hear him laugh.”

“Yeah,” I answer. I don’t know the other voice on the line. Don’t know their name, or what they look like or anything about their life. But I know that they do the same job I do, and -- once, they sounded like they’d been crying when I came on the line. I looked it up, later, which is against regulation, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I looked it up, and that was the day he’d watched “Band of Brothers” for the first time. 

Not my co-worker. I have no idea what gender they may be, or whether they’d watched “Band of Brothers” before.

No. He. Him. The Captain. The greatest hero our country has ever known.

The man whose privacy we’re violating. 

We’re not supposed to know it’s him, of course. They seem to believe that without cameras, we won’t know. As if we wouldn’t recognize the voice, or --

“Logging out, then,” my co-worker says.

“Acknowledged.” 

There’s silence on the line. Then the faint click-click of a mouse. I suppose it’s someone’s job to monitor his computer usage, too. I used to entertain myself trying to imagine what his search history would look like. “What the hell happened to Brooklyn?” or “Why don’t we have flying cars yet?” or “Alien attacks 1944 to present”.

That stuff seemed a lot funnier before I ever heard him cry himself to sleep. 

An hour later, there’s soft footsteps (very soft for a guy his size), the sound of a refrigerator opening and closing, and the sound of the microwave opening and closing. The microwave hums for several minutes, then beeps. I log all of it on my tablet. I suppose it’s someone’s job to keep track of what he eats. **Two packages of Lean Cuisine, one bag of Cheetos, one quart of Chunky Monkey.** The dinner of champions. 

He got a phone call, once. He put it on speaker, too, which was very exciting for me at the time. It was from an archivist at the Smithsonian. They seemed really surprised that he answered his own phone calls. The two of them talked for a long time about an exhibit the museum was planning. A very long time. As if one of them was starstruck, and the other was desperate for any kind of human interaction.

Or maybe I’m just projecting.

I log the time when he puts his dishes in the sink.

6:28 PM

Then he turns on his television, and I log that, too.

6:29 PM

It takes me less than ten minutes to figure out that he’s watching Young Frankenstein. Man, wouldn’t it be great if this kicked off a whole list of comedies for him to watch? Maybe he’d laugh again, one of those big, loud laughs he only has once in a -- 

The tv shuts off. His voice mutters, “Jesus, even _we_ used to have fucking Technicolor.”

6:47 PM

He might be reading. Yes, that’s the sound of a page turning, and there’s no scratch of a pencil to go with it. I hope it’s something good. I never know what he reads, of course. Only that some books seem to require a lot more internet research than others, which strikes me as sad. How can he possibly enjoy books when he has to approach them like school projects? Then again, enjoying things rarely seems like a goal, for him.

The book snaps shut, and half a second later there’s a loud thump, most likely the book hitting the far wall. Shit. 

7:34 PM

The drawer opens. Shit, please no. A soft metallic jingle. Dog tags on a chain. It’s a sound I know well. 

I log it as a keychain rattling in his pocket. 

“You’da liked Spaceballs, I think,” he says. “I mean, you’d have to watch the Star Wars movies first, but I know you’d like them. Ray guns and light swords and magic. You’d really love ‘em. Fuck, I wish . . . “

The dog tags jingle, and his breathing turns ragged.

“Love you, Buck. Happy fucking birthday.”

There’s the unmistakable sound of muffled sobs. I imagine he’s got his face buried in a pillow.

God, I hate my job.

**March 10th, 7:28 PM to 8:24 PM - there was a malfunction with the data transfer which resulted in the loss of the audio recording. The technician on-duty logged that the subject continued to read quietly during this time.**

I’d quit, but they’d just hire someone else.


End file.
